GREEDY developers are to be halted in their snapping up of gardens and green spaces in Birmingham's leafy suburbs under new city planning guidelines.

GREEDY developers are to be halted in their snapping up of gardens and green spaces in Birmingham's leafy suburbs under new city planning guidelines.

Council planners have drawn up a new Mature Suburbs policy in a bid to cut further backland development in areas such as Sutton Coldfield, Moseley, Hall Green, Edgbaston and Selly Oak.

A combination of a loophole in Government planning policy PPG3, defining suburban gardens as previously developed brownfield sites, and soaring house prices has prompted a massive surge in backland development.

The worst cases have seen houses and apartment blocks crammed into small sites behind large established detached and semi-detached homes.

Residents campaigns have sprung up opposing such development as over intensive, out of character and contributing to a loss of privacy.

But the new policy will, according to City regeneration chief Coun Neville Summerfield, stop the worst excesses of unscrupulous developers.

He said: “The PPG3 policy has been misused and abused.

“Poorly drafted legislation has resulted in abuse of the planning system.

"This new local planning guidance will ensure that residential developments take place in appropriate ways, so as not to detract from the local character that exists in our city suburbs.”

He added that the character of neighbourhoods would be preserved and the policy sends a clear message that every scrap of land is not ripe for house building.

“Our aim is not to deter investment and sensible development but to protect our suburbs from unscrupulous developers,” he added.

The new guidance includes a requirement for developers to describe how their building relates to the character of an area, that they are designed in keeping with the area and that trees and hedgerows are kept.